title: Genes up- and down-regulated by dermcidin in breast cancer: a microarray analysis.
abstract: Dermcidin (DCD) is a human gene mapped to chromosome 12q13 region, which is co-amplified with multiple oncogenes with a well-established role in the growth, survival and progression of breast cancers. Here, we present a summary of a DNA microarray-based study that identified the genes that are up- and down-regulated in a human MDA-361 pLKO control clone and three clones expressing short hairpin RNA against three different regions of DCD mRNA. A list of 235 genes was differentially expressed among independent clones (> 3-fold change and p < 0.005). The gene expression of 208 was reduced and of 27 was increased in the three DCD-RNAi clones compared to pLKO control clone. The expression of 77 genes (37%) encoding for enzymes involved in amino acid metabolism, glucose metabolism and oxidoreductase activity and several genes required for cell survival and DNA repair were decreased. The expression of EGFR/ErbB-1 gene, an important predictor of outcome in breast cancer, was reduced together with the genes for betacellulin and amphiregulin, two known ligands of EGFR/ErbB receptors. Many of the 27 genes up-regulated by DCD-RNAi expression have not yet been fully characterized; among those with known function, we identified the calcium-calmodulin-dependent protein kinase-II delta and calcineurin A alpha. We compared 132 up-regulated and 12 down-regulated genes in our dataset with those genes up- and down-regulated by inhibitors targeting various signaling pathway components. The analysis showed that the genes in the DCD pathway are aligned with those functionally influenced by the drugs sirolimus, LY-294002 and wortmannin. Therefore, DCD may exert its function by activating the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway. Together, these bioinformatic approaches suggest the involvement of DCD in the regulation of genes for breast cancer cell metabolism, proliferation and survival.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Farmacologia, Intituto de Ciências Biomédicas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brasil.
authors.forename: D F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Moreira
authors.forename: B E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Strauss
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vannier
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Belizário
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D010455:Peptides / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D034622:RNA Interference
chemical_list: D010455:Peptides; C442243:dermcidin